Clay sports and choke??

[sparkysteve]

My boss is paying for our employees to shoot trap, skeet, and sporting clays in about a month.  I've only shot trap twice.  Just throwing clays at my buddy's house is what i shoot mostly.  Not at a club.    I have a 28" barreled Browning BPS.  What choke should I use for sporting clays?  I have a full, mod, and impcyl.  I was thinking about buying a skeet choke for skeet.  What works best for sporting clays since shot angle, speed, and distance change?  Thanks. 

[Graybeard]

I'm going to "assume" your gun is a 12 ga even tho I don't see that you said it was. My answer will reflect that assumption.

For skeet for sure get a skeet choke or better yet a cylinder choke for it. For trap I think a modified is the best choice for 16 yard shooting. I think your score as a beginner will be higher with it than with a full choke. For sporting clays it varies by range and by station on each range. You'll likely have shots where that cylinder will seem too tight and might have others where your full choke doesn't seem tight enough. It's best to have extended chokes you can change quickly if you see that what you have in is wrong for that station. But then with only one barrel you are limited as often you'll need an open and a tight choke both on the same station and that can be had only in a double gun whether an O/U like most shoot or a SxS like some prefer.

If stuck with just one single choke for sporting clays I'd go with an improved cylinder unless the range is one of those that things all presentations have to be beyond full choke range to be challenging. I don't go back to those places a second time.

Yes I do follow the advice I've given. When shooting skeet 12 gauge my O/U will have two cylinder chokes in it. My 20 gauge wears one cylinder and one light skeet, my 28 wears two skeet chokes as does my .410.

For trap I shoot a modified out to about the 20 yard line and then move to full choke no matter how much further back I move. I have shot money games as far back as 37 yards behind the trap and was success at it using a full choke and a super fast (1550 fps) 1-1/8 oz charge of magnum #8 shot. For sporting clays I always shoot an O/U and make my choke selections for each station after I've seen the target presentations.

[sparkysteve]

Thanks Greybeard.  And yeah it's a 12 ga.

[lucky guy]

I shoot sporting clays a couple of times a month with a Benelli M2.  The single barrel is a disadvantage on a SC course, but I'm trying to improve my wing shooting and decided to shoot everything I can with my hunting gun.  I use improved cylinder more than any other where I shoot most of the time at our club course.  I use cylinder for the shortest stations, and either improved modified or full for one or two of the longer stations.  I shoot 8's for most of the shots and 7 1/2s for the longer shots.  One thing about shells, buy the target/trap loads rather than the low brass "quail" loads you see sometimes at discount stores.   About the same price and reports from people who have tested them are better for the target loads (better shot?).

I shoot cylinder for skeet and modified for trap, but I don't shoot too much of either one.